Glocal' Big Brother Phenomenon in Thailand

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‘Glocal’ Big Brother Phenomenon in Thailand

By Noparat Tananuraksakul

The entertainment industry is lucrative and flourishing owing to advancements in
modern technology. Television, in particular, penetrates homes in almost every
corner of the world. The current trend of reality-based TV shows in the West has
proven to be a phenomenal success and prompted Asian TV in 2005 to adapt and
create its own version of the popular international series Big Brother – Big Brother
Thailand. The show drew large audiences and was such a hit that its producers, the
Kantana Group, immediately produced a second series in the following year.

This paper explores the phenomenon of a ‘glocal’ television program in Thailand - the
first and second Big Brother Thailand series - examining the ways in which audiences
view and interpret the shows, both in terms of passive and active reception, via
positive (identification) and negative (indignation). Responses from local and
expatriate viewers vary, with some approving of the behaviour of housemates,
including gestures, and others finding these inappropriate and insulting. Leading Thai
commentators, however, have unanimously condemned the shows, questioning their
propensity to promote ‘unThai’ behaviours that have the potential to corrupt the Thai
social fabric. The influence of these critics caused the show’s producers to be called
before the House Committee on Religion, Arts and Culture in 2005 – publicity about
which caused the program’s ratings to peak. This paper examines the range of
responses to Big Brother Thailand and raises the question of whether glocal television
programs benefit local communities by increasing global understanding and
communication or contribute to the watering down of local cultures in favour of
global hegemony.

Introduction

TV and Internet globalisation, emerging in the latter part of 20th century, has had a
great influence on almost all nations, in terms of economics, politics and culture.
Culturally, the media has provided people with a popular way to relax, socialize, gain
knowledge and even improve family ties. The adoption and use of new and advanced
media communication technologies by contemporary societies has contributed to the
constitution of a globally political and economic system, where each individual and
each nation state complexly depends on and connects with another (Alasuutari, 1999).
Television contributes directly to this transformation of the world into a global
phenomenon. Giddens (1999) sees globalism as comprising a place where no single
entity is capable of domination or imperialism. Some commentators see the global
world as a place where diverse groups of people from different nations can connect
and exchange both cultures and ideas (Morley & Robins, 1995). McLuhan (1964)
argued that understanding and empathy are brought to citizens of the global village.

However, globalisation also has its critics. Ritzier (1993) views the world under
globalisation as marred by hegemony, where citizens of the global state are passively
moulded into one dominant culture and misled to losing individual identity. On the
one hand, Internet users can search for information online, trade products and
services, and use electronic mails and instant messages to communicate with others

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across the globe. On the other hand, at anytime and in any place, television audiences
are drawn into watching programs produced for global distribution because local
producers may have limited budgets to make their own products (Wilson, 2004).
Additionally, in many cases the costs of purchasing programs from the USA and
Western Europe are much lower than having to locally produce them (Berger, 1992).

Yet, viewers, not only in different cultures and societies but also in the same society,
interpret the programs in dissimilar ways. When audiences view programs, they give
their own meanings to them by culturally interpreting the product communication
through active participation - “the bottom-up flow of interpretations of people living
in a geographical setting” (Lie, 2003: 109). Höijer (1999) refers to them as active
audiences who use the cultural interpretation flow to strengthen their social, cultural
and political engagements, whereas Fisk (1987, 1991) and Curran (2006) see such
flows as audience power that protects people from undesired ideology.

In consequence, the term ‘glocalisation’ - or ‘localisation’ of the globe – has been
coined to reflect the merging of the concepts - ‘global’ and ‘local’. For Barker
(1999), global products can become local as whatever is considered local “is produced
within and by a globalising discourse which includes capitalist marketing and its
increasing orientation to differentiated local markets” (p. 42). Chang (2003) defines
media glocalisation as “a language-block-by-language-block approach or country-by-
country approach to deal with differences within a region” (p. 4) that involves three
phases of programming strategies. The first one refers to re-broadcasting Western
programming; the second involves the customising of language; the third recognises
the cooperation of international producers with local sectors for local programming.

It is evident that glocal products or commodities are more likely to originate from
Western countries, specifically the United States, the so-called locus of modernity.
The products are usually wrapped up in glossy packages, attracting consumers
elsewhere who either integrate or disintegrate themselves with the packages, such
integration and disintegration depending on the forms of consumers’ familiarity or
unfamiliarity with the cultural identity of the product. Referred to by Wang and
Servaes (2002) as involving paired aspects, this process depends on one’s inward
feelings of identification with a particular culture or subculture and an outward
tendency towards or away from another culture in order to come to a realisation of a
sense of cultural differences from and similarities to others. The sense of viewer
identity is also associated with a process of “learning about and accepting the
traditions, heritage, language, religion, ancestry, aesthetics, thinking patterns, and
social structures of a culture” (Lusting & Koester, 2006: 137). Among these cultural
values, as described by Samovar and Porter (2003), are powerful guides of one’s own
perceptions and behaviours of “what is worth dying for, what is worth protecting,
what frightens people, what are proper subjects for study and for ridicule, and what
types of events lead individuals to group solidarity” (p.12). This sense of identity is
likewise related to consumption as:

       [it] defines identities or even that identity is consumption...a global identity
       and a local identity are ideal forms, not existing in real life. All identities are a
       mixture of global and local aspects. People in local settings constantly
       reshape their own individual and collective identities by consuming cultural
       elements originating from a variety of levels (Lie, 2003: 102).

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What may be seen as appropriate cultural values in some cultures may not be viewed
the same way in others. For instance, in Thai culture, it is not considered rude to ask
a person’s age, although it can be in Western cultures. Thais have the Pi-Nong
(siblings) relationship system. Although not biologically related, Thais are culturally
required to address one another as either Pi (the older) or Nong (the younger). Thais
also prefer to practice indirectness in communication, which is considered more
appropriate than being straightforward mainly because directness may cause
confrontation and conflict causing others to lose face. North Americans, on the other
hand, value directness as a sign of being honest. Thai culture fits most closely with
what Hall (1976) conceptualises as high-context culture and Hofstede (1980) as
collectivistic culture. It is a culture where people place great importance, not so much
on the individual, as on their groups and societies, communicating their thoughts not
only via verbal messages but also through context and nonverbal codes which are
crucial to the construction of meaning. This is generally opposed to practices in the
West where low-context culture and individualism are practiced.

Recently, according to Thai intellectual Nithi Aewsriwong (cited in Siriyuvasak 2000:
101) Thais - especially the emerging middle classes influenced by the West through
the use of new media, travel and education abroad - have adopted new cultural values
of individualism and consumerism. They tend to be concerned with their own class
interests, ignore the traditional Thai values of freedom, equality and democracy and
are moving to Western-style competitiveness in business dealings with an emphasis
on accumulation of knowledge and resources, income and profits. Pennycook (1994)
has argued against the value of study abroad as overseas students are not only obliged
to possess a high level of English proficiency in order to be admitted to degree
courses in the host countries, but also become dependant upon “forms of Western
knowledge that are of limited value and of extreme inappropriateness to the local
[cultural and social] context” (p. 20). In many cases, students studying abroad place
themselves in culturally conflicting situations with their own people. Pennycook’s
example demonstrates the complexity of cultural differences – that they abound not
only between the East and the West but also within the West and the East themselves,
creating barriers to understanding.

Research Methodology

In order to explore the phenomenon of the first and second Big Brother Thailand
series, this paper will examine the ways in which audiences view and interpret the
programs using data from the following websites collected between April and August
2006, and August and September 2007:

http://tvfanforums.net/lofiversion/index.php?t1214.html
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=24441
http://www.mythailanddiary.com/392/big-brother-thailand
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=24509
http://www.brandage.com/issue/cs_detail.asp?id=1581
http://www.blog.sanook.com

Wilson (2004) asserts that when local audiences watch a glocal show, they actively or
playfully interpret its contents, the characters presenting or hosting it, its screen

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format and its narrative. From there, audiences either identify themselves with or feel
antipathetic toward their interpretations. The ability to identify oneself with the
contents of a program and its media actors, involves a culturally aware process.
Inevitably, glocal television programs are then very much involved with cross-cultural
perspectives. Meaningful or positive interpretations by audiences usually occur via
their recognition and familiarity with the culture of the program, which in turn
depends on cultural sharing and integration across the globe. This reveals the web of
relations between ‘us’ and ‘absent others’ (Giddens, 1990).

Glocal television programs such as Survivor and Big Brother are widely viewed and
copied. The latter program is representative of many ‘copy-cat’ television formats
(Woods, 2002) adopted by countries around the world whereby the local program
makers are instructed to follow the original program format, for example, to use the
original logo, backdrops, computer graphics, showing time and so on. Big Brother
Thailand is no exception.

Criticism of the Big Brother Show

Kantana Group, a Thai media corporation, produces Big Brother Thailand on an
annual contract and sets its program objective in accordance with the product’s
original theme (developed in the Netherlands where the program was first shown in
1999) of portraying real people in real interactions while living together in a confined
environment over an extended period of time. Although Sasikorn Chansate, who is
the managing director of Kantana Group, has claimed that the focus of the program is
not romance but real life showing how people live together and interact with one
another (Assavanonda, 2005), both of the Thai versions’ themes have been clearly
based on conflicts within and around difficult personalities and/or romantic situations.

The format of the show involves fifteen strangers living in the same house for a total
of 105 days. Each individual has to follow instructions and perform tasks directed by
Big Brother. With 26 cameras located in every corner of the house, each and every
movement of the inhabitants is monitored and watched around the clock by home and
cyberspace audiences. As people live together, they behave and adjust to each other
in order to survive in the group. Those who find it difficult to get along well with the
others are voted out and evicted, one by one, until, in the final week, the last
remaining individual wins the game. The prizes include a house, a car and cash.

The first Thai version of the series telecast in 2005 was a phenomenal success. Big
Brother became a smash hit as Thai viewers went crazy and were glued to their
screens in response to the controversial behaviour of two contestants, Pim and Toto,
who became intimate in the house – holding hands and sharing a blanket. The two
contestants were portrayed as lovers, and viewers were not pleased with what they
saw. For members of the opposite sex to touch each other affectionately in public is
taboo in Thailand. Critics of the show were alarmed and consequently questioned the
values portrayed in Big Brother Thailand, raising concerns about a corrosion of
‘Thainess’ amongst viewers (Assavanonda, 2005).

According to Sattayanurak (n.d.), ‘Thainess’ was initially conceptualised under the
absolute monarchy of King Rama V to prevent the nation from being seen as barbaric
by Western powers and to strengthen the ability of Thailand to resist Western

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domination. The King played a vital role in fostering artistic and cultural expressions
of ‘Thainess’ which was exemplified by unique Thai traits. ‘Thainess’ was described
as supporting a hierarchical social structure which was successful in shaping [a]
“mentality [of] “Thailand is good”...convincing [Thais] that everything in Thai
society and culture was already ‘good’; and all the ‘bad’ elements were the result of
foreign influence” (p. 29). However, in the present context of the Big Brother series,
‘Thainess’ was used by mainstream intellectuals as a concept – partly influenced by
Buddhism - emphasising “that everyone must ‘know thy place’ via Thai decorum,
Thai language, Thai ethics” (p. 30).

Itthipol Pretiprasong, TV for Kids research and development team project head,
questioned the show’s influence on young people (Assvanonda, 2005). He considered
the behaviour of the contestants to be improper and inappropriate and feared young
Thai people might find it acceptable. He recommended local cultural issues should be
taken into consideration by the show’s producers and that the local format of
programs such as this should be adjusted to suit local values and beliefs, rather than
merely copying the values of the original version. In his comments, he emphasised
the uniqueness of Thai culture:

       In the show, 12 people are totally cut off from the outside world, which in
       reality is impossible. Despite its concept, the program is far from reality. If
       you say it's about how people would live together, there should be something
       else, apart from chatting, gossiping and boycotting someone in the group.
       There are other creative things they could do (Assvanonda, 2005).

Panpimol Lortrakul, a child psychiatrist, was also disturbed by the scenes shown on
TV screens involving romantic relationships. Given that the show is reality based,
rather than scripted, she raised the possibility that it could have more impact on
viewers than a soap opera. She was also concerned it might lead to copy-cat
behaviours amongst the show’s mass audience. Ladda Thongsupachai, the Director
of the Cultural Surveillance Centre under the Culture Ministry, noted she had kept a
close watch on the show from the start and thought there were risks in broadcasting it
around the clock. All human behaviours, including sex, had the potential to take
place in the house and be broadcast live. Though Toto, the man criticized for his
intimate actions, was evicted from the house early on in the series, Thongsupachai
believed there was a need for the government to be ever vigilant in monitoring the
behaviour of the housemates.

The most serious concerns were voiced by Chairman of the House Committee on
Religion, Arts and Culture, Kuthep Saikrachang, who said that Thai society couldn't
accept this kind of reality program because it did more harm than good to the Thai
social fabric. He questioned why Thai producers would import the concept of the
program from a foreign country at all. He protested that he did not understand why
the two contestants would express their feelings openly in front of the cameras in
breach of social taboos and raised the suspicion that they may have been directed to
do so by the producers in a chase for ratings. He called for the producer – the
Kantana Group - to explain why such improper behaviour was allowed to be
broadcast. The producer defended that the show just portrayed real life in a house.
His comments forced the Culture Ministry to consider whether or not to screen reality

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programs with the possibility of preventing them being aired (Assavanonda, 2005)

These critics - socially and politically recognised in Thai society – unanimously
viewed their cultural identities as being different from those projected on screen
(Loke, Supramaniam & Wilson, 2005). They actively interpreted the media product,
Big Brother Thailand, and found themselves unable to relate to its narrative shape and
screen format, leading them to question the ethics of the local series. At the same
time, collectively they perceived that young audiences, whose moral virtue was
untried and who watched the program for a long period of time, were more likely to
be negatively influenced by what they viewed (Gerbner cited in Chandler, 1995).

Interestingly, public and critical opinions voiced in Western countries, where cultural
values are said to generally contrast with Eastern countries, share common views with
the ones from Thailand. For instance, Hill and Palmer (2002) state concerns by critics
regarding the Big Brother format – in particular, that it negatively affects viewers
because it involves a “dumbing-down” (p. 251) of culture, while projecting a poor
image of reality. In France, some viewers, in a protest that police had to quell with
tear gas, claimed the show undermined public morals (ibid).

Audiences’ Views on Websites

A range of audience reactions to Big Brother Thailand can be found on the program’s
own linked website (http://www.gsmadvance.com/wap/bigbrother/web/index.aspx).
Viewers’ online behaviour on the Big Brother website is directly influenced by what
is happening in the television broadcasts. The television content is, therefore, a
crucial driving force in both the use of the website and in the comments posted there,
(Oegema, Kleinnijenhuis and Vaneka, 2005). Richard Barrow (21/05/2005)
apparently a British expatriate posted his comment on the Thai version of Big Brother
he saw on UBC 16, claiming that he had never watched the UK version and expressed
the assumption that the British version must have been the opposite of the Thai
version. Demonstrating the gap between British and Thai cultures, Barrow further
expressed surprise that same sex touching was acceptable in Thailand – and in the Big
Brother broadcasts – when it would be unacceptable in his home society. On Big
Brother Thailand housemates massaged each other and shared the same mattress
through the nights without drawing any public criticism. Same gender hand-holding
in public is acceptable in Thailand as a sign of friendship, particularly amongst
females, but not in Britain. Yet touching, hugging and showing affection between
people of different genders caused outrage amongst critics in Thailand.

Comments by other expatriate viewers posted on www.tvfanforums.net also criticised
the first version of Big Brother Thailand revealing an unfamiliarity with some of the
cultural values projected in the show. The following are examples of four viewers
posted:

       [It] seems [like] you can go [to] Thailand and have sex on any downtown
       street and in any strip bar or massage parlour but you can't show it on TV…a
       bit like America then!…It's unimaginable to me to have to live like I wasn't a
       human being and didn't need physical contact even innocent as holding
       hands…[I] can't imagine how boring the show would be to have to watch for

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       any physical contact. Glad [the US Big Brother] is not like that then again the
       extreme is the Australian [Big Brother]. Guess we are never happy no matter
       what they do (18/05/2005).

Comments on the second series, posted on www.mythailanddiary.com also
demonstrate an unfamiliarity of Western viewers with Thai cultural values:

       Pathetic…there is a guy from Big Brother Sweden called Anton who got
       exchanged with a guy from Big Brother Thailand...The Thai guy said the
       Swedish girls are cute and that they walked around naked in the house... In
       between I see this lost look on [the Swedish’s (sic)] face and wonder how bad
       his culture shock is. No dating, no sex, no gossiping with someone from his
       own culture, no fighting and certainly no naked women on Big Brother
       Thailand. In Europe that’s what Big Brother is all about…who is dating who,
       who is the first person to totally crack under pressure…Go Anton, you should
       win just for having the guts to join Big Brother Thailand. Anton must have felt
       like he had walked into another world.

A popular Thai website, www.sanook.com, created a web board for audiences of the
second series of Big Brother Thailand to post their views of the program. A total of
81 viewers posted their opinions (a mixture of positive and negative perspectives)
from the 21 February to 1 April, 2006 (See Tables 1 & 2). Although the number of
posters provides too small a sample to draw definitive conclusions about the way the
program was viewed, these responses nevertheless provide an interesting insight into
the way the second series was perceived by ordinary viewers at home.

Table 1: Positive views of Big Brother’s audiences towards the Housemates and the
TV program

Item                             Positive                         Total Numbers
  1    Jeff, one of the contestants, is cute and a darling.              7
  2    Oe, a female contestant, is nice and lovely.                      1
  3    Oum, another female contestant, is a poor girl. We feel           4
       sympathy for her.
 4     Nok, a young lady dentist, and Nui, another female                 3
       housemate, are straightforward. Why can’t people
       appreciate them?
 5     Birdday, a contestant, is a fine man.                              1
 6     It’s an exciting and fun show.                                     3
 7     Watch everyday out of curiosity as to how all                      2
       contestants behave when they get angry.
 8     Don’t be too serious. Just watch it for fun. People are            1
       insincere in real life anyway.
 9     The host of the program on ITV is good.                            1

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Table 2: Negative views of Big Brother’s audiences towards the Housemates and the
TV program

Item                            Negative                           Total Numbers
  1    The show is fake, uncreative and nonsense.                          9
  2    It’s boring to see aggressive behaviours.                           2
  3    Nok who is well educated but acts in an uneducated                 48
       manner, always blames, gossips about and discourages
       others. She should be voted out.
 4     Nui is an awful girl like Nok and should be evicted.                14
 5     None of the contestants behave properly as they all try              1
       to pair up as couples.
 6     All housemates have nasty characters.                               1
 7     All housemates are good-looking but are unskilled to do             1
       housework.
 8     The producers are deceitful.                                        3

These tables suggest that six of the 15 housemates drew comments from the 81 active
audience members who posted comments on the web board. Positive comments
related to familiarity, in the sense that those who posted framed their remarks in terms
of aspects of the shows/characters that they saw as providing good or suitable role
models. Jeff was the most liked contestant in the first series because of his perceived
character (see Table 1, item 1), while Oum gained sympathy due to her weak
character and the fact she was seen to be taken advantage of by others (see, Table 1,
item 3). Amongst the negative comments was criticism of Nok and Nui who were
seen as portraying non-Thai characteristics such as being too direct (see Table 2,
items 3 & 4). The comments showed an appreciation of the behaviours of Oe and
Birdday (see Table 1, items 2 & 5), while there was also appreciation for the way the
show was formatted (see Table 1, items 5-9).

As far as negative views are concerned, posters to the website mainly showed their
indignation towards two housemates, (see Table 2, items 3 and 4) - Nok, who was
disliked the most, and Nui. The behaviour of these two people was found to be
unacceptable. Fans of the show who posted thought they should be evicted. Items 2,
5, 6 and 7 of Table 2 show that audience members who posted to the website
perceived a form of general indignation about the housemates’ behaviours,
personalities and skills, even reacting to the contrived nature of the series and the
manipulations (deceit) of the show’s producers (Table 2, items 1 & 8).

Conclusion

Regardless of how audiences view the Thai glocalised Big Brother versions,
identifiably or controversially, the show has generated phenomenal waves in what
Habermas (1989) describes as the public sphere. People in bourgeois societies around
the world, including via the press, have responded and talked about events in the Big
Brother house - events that are made to happen in a specific way with intended
specific impacts on participants and a specific end in mind (Scannell, 2002). The
program producers have successfully created a closed environment where the
behaviour of contestants can be both manipulated by producers and then scrutinised

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by the public leading to what Lumby (2003) calls “human dilemma and conflicts for
commercial purposes” (p.20). Primarily aimed at entertaining audiences for financial
gain, the show raises ethical debate wherever it has been shown, including in Thailand
where the debate centred around its suitability for viewing by Thai audiences and
participants.

Big Brother is defined as a commercial hybrid product that combines different genres
(Hill & Palmer, 2002; Lumby, 2003), aimed at securing and keeping audiences.
Scannell (2002) calls it “a made-for-television event” that uses familiar storytelling
tropes. Over the decade, the show has been running internationally, the use of
interactive media to enrich the format has increased dramatically, stimulating
audiences to participate and interact with the program. Its popular multimedia format,
in Thailand as elsewhere, relies on interactivity to promote itself and boost profits via
the use of SMS, SMS News, SMS News Flash by way of encouraging viewers to
vote, send cheer-up messages to contestants and post messages online. This
demonstrates co-creativity between the production company Kantana, the contestants
and viewers. Big Brother has become a “multimedia phenomenon [which refigures a
form of] active citizenship” (Hill & Palmer, 2002: 253).

Not only do the program makers profit from the screening of the Big Brother
programs, but contestants, internationally, are also drawn into the Big Brother house
by the promise of fame (Woods, 2002), in return for what may be a minor cost - the
surrendering of their privacy while potentially opening themselves to criticism. If
they win, they also earn minor celebrity status and a cash prize. As well, the media
gets benefits from the show being aired, profiting from its role as “a generator of
publicity and associated spin-offs” (Hill & Palmer, 2002: 252). While it is clear that
audiences respond both positively and negatively, within a context of realisation that
the ‘real life’ of the program is contrived, audiences still see the housemates as real
(Woods, 2002). Big Brother Thailand, according to commentators such as Kasien
Thechapira (1997 cited in Siriyuvasak 2000: 112), Itthipol Pretiprasong, Panpimol
Lortrakul, Ladda Thongsupachai and Kuthep Saikrachang, may be corrupting Thai
culture and encouraging Thais to adopt inappropriate Western values to their own
detriment and the detriment of Thai society. At the same time, new cultural values
are being created by the show, as noted by Nithi Aewsriwong.

Although the viewers actively express their voices or interpretations on the website,
some questions in turn arise. Do the Thai audiences, especially the young ones, really
benefit from viewing the glocal show in any aspect? Do they deserve to be
manipulated by the show format and its controversial themes? The answer may be
‘no’ for the critics who cannot identify themselves with the program since they
culturally value ‘Thainess’ and collectivism. They do not want to see the young Thais
being influenced by any unsuitable Western values through the reality program and
subconsciously adopting them to their life.

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